Hammond dairy farmer elected to Milk Marketing Board
By Kelsie Hoitomt
HAMMOND — Kay Zwald of Bomaz Farms was recently elected to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board (WMMB) after the directors of the Board elected a new slate of officers at the annual reorganization meeting.
Zwald will now take on the roll as Vice-Chair of the Board for the 2014 Fiscal Year, which began on July 1 and will end on June 30, 2014. She was previously elected to the Board in 2006 and served on both of the WMMB’s standing Board committees; this is her first term as Vice President.
The Board consists of dairy farmers elected by their peers to represent each of the areas of the state. All terms are three years and one third of the Board is up for election every year.
Half of those elected are put on the local communications committee, which discusses promoting dairy in local communities and schools along with the impact of dairy to the states economy.
The other half of those elected are put on the channel management committee, which discusses all things cheese; Zwald has served on both committees.
About 90 percent of Wisconsin’s milk is turned into cheese and nearly 90 percent of that cheese is sold outside of Wisconsin.
The WMMB has three other committees as well including the policy committee, the audit committee and the Center for Dairy Research committee (CDR). The CDR is sponsored by the WMMB and located on the UW-Madison campus.
“I am a proud member of the board. Promoting the nutritional value of dairy in schools, on the radio and in magazines along with the large Wisconsin cheese displays in nearly all of the grocery stores around the United States is very important in growing demand for Wisconsin dairy,” said Zwald.
Dairy farmers in the United States each pay 15 cents per hundred weight of milk sold. In Wisconsin, ten cents stays in the state and five cents goes to the national dairy program. That ten cents, is used to promote and educate folks on the nutritional value of consuming dairy products.
There is a staff of about 25 people hired by a CEO and that person is hired by the Board of Directors to do the job of education and promoting the dairy industry.
Kay is an accomplished dairy farmer as she is a co-owner at Bomaz Farms along side her husband, Bob and their children; Tom and Annette and Annette’s husband, Steve Schalla.
Kay’s job on the farm is to care for the calves and heifers.
The farm currently milks about 600 cows in a double, ten parallel parlor. There is also around 1,500 acres used to grow the forage for the cows and young stock.